Lesson 7: Alien Dance Party with Sprite Lab
Overview
This lesson features Sprite Lab, a platform where students can create their own interactive animations and games. In addition to behaviors, today students will incorporate user input as events to create an "alien dance party".
Purpose
Students will use events to make characters move around the screen, make noises, and change backgrounds based on user input. This lesson offers a great introduction to events in programming and even gives students a chance to show creativity! At the end of the puzzle sequence, students will be presented with the opportunity to share their projects.
Agenda
Warm Up (5 min)
Main Activity (30 min)
Wrap Up (10 min)
View on Code Studio
Objectives
Students will be able to:
- Identify actions that correlate to input events.
- Create an interactive animation using sprites, behaviors, and events.
Preparation
- Play through the puzzles to find any potential problem areas for your class.
- Make sure every student has a journal.
Vocabulary
- Event - An action that causes something to happen.
Introduced Code
set backgroundrandom locationlocation pickerchange colorremove colorsprite clickedsprite touches sprite
Support
Report a Bug
Teaching Guide
Warm Up (5 min)
Introduction
Today students will visit events in programming.
Demo: Ask the students to raise their hands in the air.
What you did was declare an event. When you say "raise your hands in the air" the students responded by raising their hands. In coding, you would declare this by saying something like "when I say 'raise your hands,' you raise your hands".
You can also think of cities as declaring events. There are laws that say "when there is a green light, cars move through the intersection".
Discuss: Ask the students why they think this is an event.
Today, students will play in Sprite Lab, but the events they will be working on will be more like the video games they are used to playing. Events will take the form of actions, such as clicking the screen or two characters running into each other.
Display: Begin by showing Puzzle 1 to your students.
Think/Pair: Ask them to predict what will happen when the code is run, and to discuss with their neighbors. Run the code, and discuss the outcome.
Main Activity (30 min)
Online Puzzles
Teaching Tip
Encourage students with questions/challenges to start by asking their partner. Unanswered questions can be escalated to a nearby group, who might already know the solution. Have students describe the problem that they’re seeing:
- What is it supposed to do?
- What does it do?
- What does that tell you?
Goal: Today, students will be creating their own alien dance party! They’ll begin by reviewing how to put sprites on the screen, then they will assign them behaviors and learn to change those behaviors when an event is initiated.
Transition: Move students to their machines. Encourage students to follow the instructions for each puzzle. Help them realize that this is a creative activity, intended to help them learn Sprite Lab. It is not an assessment activity of any sort.
Wrap Up (10 min)
Journaling
Having students write about what they learned, why it’s useful, and how they feel about it can help solidify any knowledge they obtained today and build a review sheet for them to look to in the future.
Journal Prompts:
- What was today's lesson about?
- How do you feel about today's lesson?
- How did it feel to have control over what your characters were able to do?
- Did you change the program in any way to make it feel more like your own?
- Prediction
- 1
Student Instructions
Make a prediction: Here’s a sprite that looks like a blue alien!
What do you think will happen when you click on it?
- Video
- 2
Teaching Tip
This lesson contains a mini-project called Alien Dance Moves. This progression may feel very different from what has come earlier in the course for you as well as your students. These levels have some new characteristics you may want to explore before starting.
- The code your students write in one level will automatically transfer over to the other levels. This allows them to build gradually and iterate on their ideas as they learn.
- These levels allow for more open-ended creativity. Empower your students to determine for themselves when they have completed each task. There is no one right answer!
- Example solutions are available for this step of the progression which can be viewed by opening the teacher panel to the right.
This level will validate a student’s code by checking that the following conditions have been met:
Student must click the sprite after pressing Run.
The sprite needs to spin.
Student Instructions
The alien was proud of its dancing skills on Mars, but now it can only move side-to-side.
Replace the behavior block in the sprite begins block to a different one that will make the alien start spinning!
Teaching Tip
This lesson contains a mini-project called Alien Dance Moves. This progression may feel very different from what has come earlier in the course for you as well as your students. These levels have some new characteristics you may want to explore before starting.
- The code your students write in one level will automatically transfer over to the other levels. This allows them to build gradually and iterate on their ideas as they learn.
- These levels allow for more open-ended creativity. Empower your students to determine for themselves when they have completed each task. There is no one right answer!
- Example solutions are available for this step of the progression which can be viewed by opening the teacher panel to the right.
This level will validate a student’s code by checking that the following conditions have been met: Student must create a pink alien sprite. The pink alien sprite must start a behavior when clicked.
Student Instructions
Create a new sprite that looks like a pink alien. 
Make it do any move you want when it's clicked. Try using a new move this time!
Teaching Tip
This lesson contains a mini-project called Alien Dance Moves. This progression may feel very different from what has come earlier in the course for you as well as your students. These levels have some new characteristics you may want to explore before starting.
- The code your students write in one level will automatically transfer over to the other levels. This allows them to build gradually and iterate on their ideas as they learn.
- These levels allow for more open-ended creativity. Empower your students to determine for themselves when they have completed each task. There is no one right answer!
- Example solutions are available for this step of the progression which can be viewed by opening the teacher panel to the right.
This level will validate a student’s code by checking that the following conditions have been met: Students must create three sprites using the blue alien, pink alien, and yellow alien costumes. Students must arrange the alien sprites in a horizontal line (within 50 pixels). * The yellow alien sprite needs to start a behavior when clicked.
Student Instructions
Form an alien dance crew!
- Create a third sprite that looks like a yellow alien, and make it begin a dance move when clicked.
- Set all of your aliens to stand in a horizontal line, like this:
Teaching Tip
This lesson contains a mini-project called Alien Dance Moves. This progression may feel very different from what has come earlier in the course for you as well as your students. These levels have some new characteristics you may want to explore before starting.
- The code your students write in one level will automatically transfer over to the other levels. This allows them to build gradually and iterate on their ideas as they learn.
- These levels allow for more open-ended creativity. Empower your students to determine for themselves when they have completed each task. There is no one right answer!
- Example solutions are available for this step of the progression which can be viewed by opening the teacher panel to the right.
This level will validate a student’s code by checking that the following conditions have been met: * Student must change the color of at least one sprite.
Student Instructions
Let's try using a different kind of event.
Create a single keypress event using the keypress event block.
For this event, make it so that when a key is pressed, each of your aliens changes color! Choose any key you like, but if you are using a touch screen we recommend up, down, left, or right.
Teaching Tip
This lesson contains a mini-project called Alien Dance Party. This progression may feel very different from what has come earlier in the course for you as well as your students. These levels have some new characteristics you may want to explore before starting.
- The code your students write in one level will automatically transfer over to the other levels. This allows them to build gradually and iterate on their ideas as they learn.
- These levels allow for more open-ended creativity. Empower your students to determine for themselves when they have completed each task. There is no one right answer!
- Example solutions are available for this step of the progression which can be viewed by opening the teacher panel to the right.
This level will validate a student’s code by checking that the following conditions have been met: * All alien sprites must stop their behaviors.
Student Instructions
These aliens are running wild! Let's calm them down by ringing a bell.
First add a new sprite that looks like a bell.
Then add an event that makes each alien stop dancing when the bell is clicked, using the stops everything block!
Teaching Tip
This lesson contains a mini-project called Alien Dance Party. This progression may feel very different from what has come earlier in the course for you as well as your students. These levels have some new characteristics you may want to explore before starting.
- The code your students write in one level will automatically transfer over to the other levels. This allows them to build gradually and iterate on their ideas as they learn.
- These levels allow for more open-ended creativity. Empower your students to determine for themselves when they have completed each task. There is no one right answer!
- Example solutions are available for this step of the progression which can be viewed by opening the teacher panel to the right.
This level will validate a student’s code by checking that the following conditions have been met: * The blue alien sprite needs to start a new behavior.
Student Instructions
For the pink alien, fun is contagious! Touching it makes anyone want to dance!
Use the when touching event block to make the blue alien begin a new dance move when the pink alien touches it.
Teaching Tip
This lesson contains a mini-project called Alien Dance Party. This progression may feel very different from what has come earlier in the course for you as well as your students. These levels have some new characteristics you may want to explore before starting.
- The code your students write in one level will automatically transfer over to the other levels. This allows them to build gradually and iterate on their ideas as they learn.
- These levels allow for more open-ended creativity. Empower your students to determine for themselves when they have completed each task. There is no one right answer!
- Example solutions are available for this step of the progression which can be viewed by opening the teacher panel to the right.
This level will validate a student’s code by checking that the following conditions have been met: Students must have at least one costume in their project. Students must create three sprites with unique costumes.
Student Instructions
Now create your own alien disco! Looking for inspiration? Try these ideas: Create another alien that does another move when clicked. Make aliens do more dance moves when they touch each other.
Standards Alignment
View full course alignment
CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards (2017)
AP - Algorithms & Programming
- 1B-AP-12 - Modify, remix or incorporate portions of an existing program into one's own work, to develop something new or add more advanced features.
Cross-curricular Opportunities
This list represents opportunities in this lesson to support standards in other content areas.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards
L - Language
- 4.L.6 - Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being (e.g., quizzed, whined, stammered) and that are basic to a particular topic (e.g
SL - Speaking & Listening
- 4.SL.1 - Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
- 4.SL.1.a - Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion.
- 4.SL.4 - Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.
- 4.SL.6 - Differentiate between contexts that call for formal English (e.g., presenting ideas) and situations where informal discourse is appropriate (e.g., small-group discussion); use formal English when appropriate to task and situation.
W - Writing
- 4.W.6 - With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of one page in a
Common Core Math Standards
MP - Math Practices
- MP.1 - Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
- MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively
- MP.4 - Model with mathematics
- MP.5 - Use appropriate tools strategically
- MP.6 - Attend to precision
- MP.7 - Look for and make use of structure
- MP.8 - Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning
NBT - Number And Operations In Base Ten
- 4.NBT.4 - Fluently add and subtract multi-digit whole numbers using the standard algorithm.
- 4.NBT.5 - Multiply a whole number of up to four digits by a one-digit whole number, and multiply two two-digit numbers, using strategies based on place value and the properties of operations. Illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular ar
Next Generation Science Standards
ETS - Engineering in the Sciences
ETS1 - Engineering Design
- 3-5-ETS1-1 - Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
- 3-5-ETS1-2 - Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.